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 The United Kingdom, 2004: In a bedroom somewhere in Bristol, a band with a naughty name and a lot of keyboards is born. Four years later, ANDREW HUNG tells MICHAEL PINCOTT of the emergence and rise of experimental two-piece FUCK BUTTONS.
To get it out of the way, there is no wit or pretension regarding the band’s name, no blunt desire to offend. Hung cheerfully dismisses it as something that amused them at the time. On the other hand, he does acknowledge that it can pose an obstacle now and then with more sensitive-minded folk.
“Usually we can get by just saying F Buttons instead of F***,” says Hung.
The band initially grew out of a friendship between Hung and the band’s other member, Benjamin John Power, when they found themselves attending the same gigs as one another.
“I had made a film which needed a soundtrack and so we got together to work on that. We found that it was very easy to work with one another and out of that we formed the band.”
After F*** Buttons formed in 2004 they began to play frequent live shows. Their growing reputation culminated in the release of Street Horrrsing earlier this year, recorded by John Cummings of Mogwai.
“When we were trying to decide on a studio and a producer, we instantly thought of Mogwai. We ended up meeting John and he was up for working on the record.”
That relationship lead to an extensive tour with Mogwai that Hung greatly enjoyed.
“They’re really great guys. They’re very much a live band and we’re very much a live band, so the coupling was perfect.”
F*** Buttons’ sound falls somewhere between the climaxes and withdrawals of post-rock and the hypnotic repetition of drone music. Street Horrrsing thrives on the balance of stagnation and progression, a dynamic made possible by the organic structure of the tracks. They are songs more driven by feeling than by thought, a distinction important to Hung in the songwriting process.
“We mess around with our instruments, in the beginning it’s just a real muddle of sound. As we go along we try to organize the elements we like and discard the ones we don’t. We try and feel our way through, and eventually we come out with a song.”
Though their music features vocals, screamed improvisations from Ben Power, his voice is treated as just another instrument with no priority in the mix. In Sweet Love For Planet Earth, it plays as an augmentation to the growing walls of crystalline electronic noise, encircled by a simple, repeated melody. By transforming the screams into another instrument they are able to turn something confronting and ugly into something radiant. It completes the puzzle, the last piece before the song ascends into musical iridescence. It’s this dynamic that separates F*** Buttons from post-rock bands like Mogwai or noise bands like Wolf Eyes.
Watching video footage of the band play live, one instrument that stands out is a brightly coloured toy tape recorder, Power’s screams directed into a small yellow microphone. (I could have sworn there was one in Toy Story).
“I actually bought it as a mini guitar amp,” said Hung. “Stuff just gets bought and used all the time. I’m very interested in using unconventional things as instruments. I’ve become quite obsessed with collecting little keyboards actually.”
Hung insists that F*** Buttons’ music is as much supposed to be felt as it is heard.
“I want to like things melodically but the repetition is an important thing to me. When we play live it’s becoming physically enveloped in the music.”
Repetition in music is a curious thing. For some people it has no effect other than boredom, but for others it is a doorway to a sort of trance where the rhythm becomes like a constant heartbeat, or a wheel spinning, with no visible or necessary end. It can be a powerful thing when done right, and F*** Buttons do it beautifully.
Catch FUCK BUTTONS at a special All Tomorrow’s Parties sideshow Friday Jan 16 at The Brisbane Powerhouse. Joining them are fellow ATP acts Dead Meadow and Afrirampo. STREET HORRRSING is out now through ATP Recordings. www.myspace.com/fuckbuttons
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